Recurring Push Formulas

[Justin Satiable]

A post by another member made me want to bring this up.

Do you ever get the feeling that the WWE regurgitates a lot of its old angles and pushes?

The best example I can think of off the top of my head is the strange basic resemblance of the careers of Rocky Maivia/The Rock, and Randy Orton.

Take the Rock first. He debuted as Rocky Maivia, and was over at first, but slowly the fans got bored of him and turned on him. The Rock then takes a break (for injury? I can't remember) and returns, transforming himself into The Rock, and joining the heel faction Nation of Domination. Whilst a part of this group, he held the Intercontinental Championship.

Now Randy Orton. He was a face at the start of his WWE tenure, working with that RNN gimmick. Once again, fans hated him, and forced him into a heel turn. He returned after an injury (don't remember if it was a legit broken arm or not) and joins the heel faction Evolution. Whilst a part of Evolution, he held, yup, the Intercontinental Championship.

As you know, both the Rock and Orton were/are 3rd generation superstars. So do you think this inspires WWE to work with a "winning formula"? Or is this just a complete coincidence in your eyes?

 

[Ferbian]

I wouldn't say WWE is using recurring formulas in order to push talent, especially not the one that you mentioned.

First of all, if you push someone as a face and they get booed, it's obvious that a heel turn is in place (John Cena is an exception, because he gets a large cheer as well, and is the top face of the company) and that's what they did for The Rock and Randy Orton.

They did however return in other gimmicks, their backgrounds were difference in terms of how they turned each other, The Rock returned as a cocky heel that talked about himself in 3rd person, Randy Orton never did that, and never resembled The Rock's push in any way.

WWE does push some talent in the same manner sometimes I would guess, but that's only because some of them are the general way of pushing talent (slow pushes, quick pushes, holding a title to get pushed etc.) but the Angles are some I have yet to see being reused in any way, at least not in terms of pushing talent.

So I think if there were any remote comparison between Randy Orton and The Rock, it would be a complete coincidence.

 

[Carpathian Florist]

I think with Evolution, weren't him and Batista hand picked by Triple H and Flair to join because the idea of the stable was to push 2 wrestlers into super stardom?
Seeing as Triple H really broke out of the D-X stable and as you mentioned Rock broke out of the Nation of Domination stable, I guess it's just a tried and true formula of getting over singles wrestlers who'd otherwise get lost in the shuffle with nothing to do storyline-wise. I get the impression in the older days when wrestling was still a regional thing, tag teams would be made up of an older veteran and a young up-and-comer, with the idea that the star power of the veteran would still draw with the added bonus of a younger guy getting the rub. I think it is a "winning formula" as you say, but one that has worked in wrestling for decades. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" as they say.

 

[PhD]

I'll try to avoid being a smartass in my response: yes, the WWE reuses old pushes and angles. I'm not sure how this should be shocking news to anyone.

Pro-wrestling, relies on a fairly simple binarisms: good v. evil, old v. young, big v. small, etc. At a certain point, there are only so many permutations of these basic formulae.

Hell, watch professional sports in general, and tell me you don't see announcing teams trying to reuse the same old storylines: the Cinderella team (e.g. UNI in the NCAA tournament this year), the team with the hopes and dreams of a city on its back (e.g. NY sports teams after 9/11, New Orleans teams post-Katrina). Sports-type entertainment, at least in this country, relies on the appeal of the never-ending narrative, which naturally relies on certain cliches for its perpetuation.

As the saying going, there are only so many ways to skin a cat. Sure, you may invent "new" techniques for pushing someone (e.g. Money in the Bank), but down deep, very little changes. Just like in Hollywood, where you see the same stories over and over, just with superficially different arrangements of parts.

 

[Dr. Stinger A. Zoidberg]

I see what you're talking about here. I think in a sense, you are right. The WWE does re-use push formulas. In the aforementioned examples, you can tell the similarities between the two. However, there are more stars out there today who got their pushes from original storylines than there are superstars who got their pushes from re-used storylines.

I dont think it inspires a winning formula. With both men being 3rd generation superstars, they are destined to achieve success in the WWE anyway. So, I think it's just the WWE's way of being somewhat lazy. Even though there was a good 5-6 years between the two storylines.

 

[Wolfdemon]

Well to make it short and sweet, Yes this happens all the time across every wrestling company. One of the biggest gimmicks that was a copy that got over was the nWo that Bischoff stole from Japan.

 

[mister_b1LL]

If it ain't broke, dont fix it. Florist beat me to it.

Wrestling companies keep using the same form of storylines all the time because they work. The thing is though, it takes the wrestler recieving the push to make it different and entertaining. It's about taking an idea and running with it.

 

[Ruthless-RKO]

I think this is coincidence ...if you show this thread to wwe management...they will be sayin...'oh would you loom at that!!'....would they care? No..because they have amde them into stars...

I think in a few years..we will see a repeat though...and it will be the same..the last good stable in the WWE in my eyes was Evolution..we just have to wait for the next one...maybe it will be started by a heel John Cena???